By Joey Alarilla
INQUIRER.net

IT’S sometimes scary to think of how much the world has changed thanks to technology, particularly when you realize that a lot of the things we take for granted now were the stuff of science fiction just a decade or so ago. I mean, remember the days when e-mail was such a novelty, and few people had mobile phones (heck, I once carried a pager)?

In my case, the one who constantly reminds me how much the world has changed is my almost-six-year-old daughter Sam, such as the first time she saw an old phone (you know, the one you actually had to dial) and was amazed that it was, in fact, a phone. Our editor in chief JV Rufino has even dubbed it a “Sam moment,” instances when you realize that a younger generation did not grow up in a world where vinyl records, black & white TVs, party-line telephone services and film cameras were commonplace. That reminds me: I remember Sam’s lola once bringing a film camera to school during one of those Family Day activities and taking a pic of Sam and her classmates, who then all ran up to Sam’s grandma wanting to see the photo. Needless to say, it was hard for them to understand that not all cameras are digital and they were puzzled why they couldn’t view the image, heh

Anyway, when I saw the YUBZ retro handset in Sunday Inquirer Magazine’s Browser section (yup, I actually get to read the print newspaper on Sundays), it amused me and I asked our multimedia reporter Erika Tapalla to do a video interview.

Here’s YUBZ Philippines PR officer Mitzi Ruiz giving a demo of this quirky mobile phone and laptop accessory. Hope you like the video that Erika took, which I edited using iMovie HD on Mikaela, my MacBook Pro. And thanks to www.virtualsoundtracks.com for the royalty-free music.

Want more video clips from INQUIRER.net and our partners? Visit iVDO.

By Lawrence Casiraya
INQUIRER.net

TAIWAN’S HTC introduced another touch-screen device called TyTN II, which runs on the Windows Mobile 6.0 operating system.

The TyTN II follows the previous HTC Touch, the first touch-screen device launched locally by distributor SiS Technologies in July.

The TyTN II descends from the previous Dopod line of smart phones. Dopod was acquired by HTC in May.

[Read the rest of this entry »]

GET to know sexy and sassy MTV VJ Andi Manzano, who graces the cover of the September-October issue of Mobile Philippines.

Here are more details about this issue from the Mobile Philippines team of our sister company, Hinge Inquirer Publications.

Get our roster of hands-on reviews featuring Nextbase SDV185-SD, HTC Touch, Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD1A, Nokia 5700, LG KU-250, Toshiba M200, Olympus FE-240, plus tons more.

The battle of the minis rages between the Apple second-gen shuffle and Creative Zen Stone. Mobile also gives you the top 11 coolest (or weirdest) and smallest gadgets imaginable. While you’re at it, read our step by step on how to maximize DMP storage by reducing the size of your MP3s.

Grab your latest copy of Mobile Philippines available in your favorite newsstands for only 100 pesos.

By Erwin Oliva
INQUIRER.net

IT started as a joke. But just over the weekend some Filipino activists have started uploading a new mobile phone ring tone as an act of protest against the controversial $329-million national broadband network project.

The ring tone, which is based on a satirical video clip posted on YouTube, pokes fun at some personalities linked to the controversial project, now known as the “ZTE deal.”

Jose De Venecia III, the proponent of losing bidder Amsterdam Holdings Inc. (AHI), has accused Commission on Elections chairman Benjamin Abalos of allegedly trying to bribe him to get out of the deal. De Venecia, son of current House Speaker Jose De Venecia Jr., also alleged during a Senate hearing that First Gentleman Mike Arroyo also told him to “back off” from the deal.

[Read the rest of this entry »]

By Lawrence Casiraya
INQUIRER.net

WATCHING video on your wristwatch may sound like sci-fi stuff. Not so sci-fi anymore since data can be stored in tiny flash memory drives in many forms like this wristwatch that plays MP4 videos.

The screen is as big as that of any mobile phone and since I see people toting big, chunky watches, this size should not be too out-of- this-world. I spotted this one in a store in Building 298 in Wan Chai Road in Hong Kong — a well-recommended place that’s sort of HK’s version of Sim Lim Square in Singapore.

If you think the screen on that one is too large, there are more normal-looking MP4 watches like the ones below. I’d still go for the one above because a smaller screen may mean squinting your eyes some more. At around HK$100 or P6, 000, these MP4 watches are still quite expensive. They should cost less once they’re able to fit 1GB of memory. USB drives these days can have as much as 8GB already. (Editor’s note: Actually, the largest capacity for USB flash drives is supposed to be 64GB, such as this Buslink flash drive that’s also being sold on Amazon.com. But I don’t personally know anyone who has already tried and tested the supposed 64GB flash drive. Here’s a CNET review though of the 16GB and 64GB Kanguru flash drive.)